


Out Of The Bag

by wolfwinds123



Series: Lightning McQueen Died For Ryuji's Sins [7]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Abandonment, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Best Friends, Bitterness, Encouragement, Friendship, Gossip, Hinting, Hope, Hope vs. Despair, Hopeful Ending, I promise, Loneliness, Multi, Mutual Pining, Oops, Phone Calls & Telephones, Pining, Reconciliation, Ryuji "Cars 2 made me gay" Sakamoto timeline compliant, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Shipping, Talking, Wingman Ann, all of my children must be burdened with the same issues as me, he's just a sad boi, hopefully i'll get the next one out sooner, i just need my boys to suffer more, i'll get back to the goofs, it'll be a lot less angsty, wow i havent posted in a while, yay abandonment issues, yay posting for the first time in like six months, yay...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 10:53:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13588551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfwinds123/pseuds/wolfwinds123
Summary: After Morgana started avoiding him, Ryuji is beginning to feel like absolute shit. It definitely doesn't help that Ann is calling him up out of no where to talk about the stupid cat. Why is everyone so fixated reminding Ryuji that he's hopelessly in love with a someone that hates him? And why is Ann suddenly hinting that it might not be so hopeless afterall?Or: Ryuji has abandonment issues, and Ann makes them worse before making everything better.





	Out Of The Bag

**Author's Note:**

> WOW I HAVEN'T POSTED SINCE JUNE, AND I HAVE LITERALLY NO EXCUSE. WOW. 
> 
> Also, since I haven't posted in so long, I fucking forgot how to do like half of this shit. Wow, I suck. Sorry.
> 
> Anyway, this takes place a little over a week after [ "Bet On It" ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11278896) and [ "Curiosity And Cats" ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11196066).

“So… Ryuji,” Ann began, her drawn out words trickling through his phone’s speaker like molasses. “How’s Morgana?”

Ryuji rolled his eyes, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder as he fumbled with the keys to his apartment. His day was already shitty as it was, did she really have to remind Ryuji of  _ him _ ? 

“I dunno, haven’t seen him in a while, why d’ya ask?”

Work had been a disaster, the few patrons who were there that day were real assholes, and Akira had been more of a dick than usual. Between that and Morgana suddenly avoiding him like the plague out of effin’ nowhere, he was really feeling like shit. 

“Oh…” The nervous giggle in her voice only served to remind him how dreadful of an actress she was. “No reason…”

“Mmhmm. Sure,” he muttered, finally getting the temperamental door to unlock and let him into his deserted home. The apartment reeked of loneliness. His mom was already off to work her night shift, leaving him home alone until morning. Were he any other teenage delinquent, the prospect of having the place to himself would simply spell out parties, alcohol, and hot chicks. However, he was a much lonelier breed of troublemaker, so those hollow halls emanated more sadness than opportunity. 

He fought off a solemn sigh as Ann tried to stutter her way into coherence. 

It was hard to not blame himself for Morgana’s disappearance, because it wasn’t like Morgana wasn’t around anymore. He was still in Leblanc, he was still staying with Akira, but whenever Ryuji showed up for work, that’s when he would disappear. While Morgana wasn’t always present anyway, he’d still come out on slower days, or hang out with Akira and Ryuji after work, leaving snarky critical comments everywhere he went. Now he was nowhere to be seen. 

To Ryuji, it seemed as though Morgana had finally had enough of him, which was no surprise. Ryuji had honestly expected it to happen sooner. He just wished he knew what it was that finally pushed Morgana over the line. Maybe if he knew what it was he could change it and get Morgana back. He knew the stupid talking feline would never love him, but Ryuji was too sad, desperate, and in love to care. If Ryuji could at least find a way to get him back in his life, he would be content. 

Ryuji didn't ask for this. Why would he? Who in their right mind would want to realize they're in love with an annoying talking cat? Who in their right mind would even fall in love with an annoying talking cat to begin with? Well, he guessed that meant he wasn't in his right mind.

He only realized he had a crush on Morgana a couple months ago, though he was pretty sure he had been harboring that crush from the start. He couldn't tell which was weirder, that his first true love was an effin' cat, or the fact that he didn't realize he had that crush until he watched  _ Cars 2 _ . 

Once Ryuji realized his feelings though, he spent every minute since trying to figure out how to stop them. He didn't want this, he never did. His feelings were weird, confusing, and honestly disgusting to him. It was wrong, and Ryuji had yet to find a way to justify the fact that he was in love with a  _ cat _ . All the self loathing Ryuji had tried to bury over the years simply poured out, tearing through the seams of his already fragile stability. He was already overflowing with hatred and disgust for himself, and Morgana's words only validated them. See, if the first person… well, cat, Ryuji had ever loved hated him, why shouldn't Ryuji do the same?

He couldn’t tell which felt worse, his shame for being in love with such an obnoxious shapeshifting cat, or the pain that came with missing him now that he was no longer around. Could Ryuji even really miss something that wasn’t even his to begin with?

“Um, so how’s it going?” Ann tried, tearing Ryuji back to the real world. 

Ryuji shrugged before realizing that she couldn’t see him. “Uh, fine, I guess… you?”

“Fine…” Her words were followed by a silent so awkward and palpable it felt like a punch to the face.

He hated how uncomfortable this was. They were acting like they were strangers meeting for the first time. She was one of his oldest and closest friends; how did it end up like this? Well, he actually knew why, and it was his fault. 

It was always his fault when people left. 

Ryuji had ruined their friendship, plain and simple. He ruined it the first time when they were in middle school, and he ruined it again, years later, by not only sharing how much of a freak he was for being in love with a  _ cat, _ but also by over sharing the depths of his love and affections. It wasn’t until she gave him that notebook and essentially told him to never text her again, that he got the message. He had lost her once again, and it was all because of a stupid cat that he managed to push away too somehow. 

He was never going to learn, was he?

As he trudged through his quiet and empty flat towards his room, Ann finally regained her footing, breaking him from his thoughts again. He found himself delving deeper and deeper into these hate spirals quite often since Morgana started disappearing. Ryuji guessed it was his way of punishing himself for scaring Morgana off. 

“Anyway, how’s working at Leblanc?”

“It’s aight, I guess.” He wondered if he was being too cold towards her. He still thought of her as his friend after all, even if she didn’t, but he had tried to purposefully put distance between the two so he wouldn’t have to burden her anymore. He  had tried to dam up all his feelings, channel them out through a pen onto paper, but he was still worried that if she kept this up, his words and problems would spill out again. He didn’t want any more people to get sick of him and leave. Not again. 

“Cool…” she said, trailing off. 

Ryuji sighed, too tired to deal with this. “Now what do you want from me?”

“What do you mean?” The anxious giggle embedded in her words as she danced around the topic was beginning to piss him off.

“Well seeing as this is the first time we’ve spoke in like a month, I figured there’s something you want.”

“I… I uh… I don’t want anything, Ryuji…”

“Right,” he scoffed, feeling the pent up rage and bitterness from a month of no communication bubbling to the surface. As much as he felt like he deserved to be abandoned, it still stung each and every time. And if she was going to have the audacity to try to give him the false hope of friendship again and reopen old wounds, he might as well push her away himself out of self preservation. “So I guess you randomly just remembered I existed then, is that it?”

“What? No, Ryuji! That’s not it at all.”

“No? It’s not? Then what? What could possibly be so important that you decided to call me up after making it so explicitly clear that you didn’t want to talk to me anymore!”

“What are you talk about? Of course I still want to talk to you! We’re friends, remember?”

An almost feral, visceral bolt of rage tore through him. How dare she act like she wanted to be his friend, how dare she act like nothing was wrong, how dare she act like she actually cared about him. She was the one who left him, like his father, like his old track friends, like everyone else. 

Like Morgana.  

“Oh  _ sure _ , I’m sure not talking to me in over a month totally means you still want to talk. And I’m sure spending money on an effin’ diary for me to confide in instead of my supposed ‘friend’ totally means that too, right?”

“No! Ryuji-!”

“What do you mean no? Isn’t that basically what you told me? To write in it whenever I wanted to text you? Wasn’t it so I didn’t have to talk to you, right? I thought us not talking was exactly what you wanted, Ann. But now to call me up, out of the blue to talk about Morgana? Of all people? I thought you were done with that. I thought you were done with  _ me _ . What, were my old texts not enough? Do you want more entertainment? Is that was this is about? Are you calling so you can laugh more at the freak show? You know I don’t want to be this way! I never wanted to feel these things for him! But here I am! The weirdo! The freak! The car fucker! Are you here to laugh at that, on top of everything else that’s wrong with me? Is that what you came to see, Ann? Is that what you want?”

He was panting by the time he finished. He didn’t even realize up until that moment, just how upset he was about this. 

Dealing with emotions never really was his thing. 

“Ryuji…” Her voice was soft, just barely above a whisper. “Is that really what you think of me?”

He rolled his eyes and practically snarled. “Just, are you gonna cut to the chase and tell me what you want, or are was gonna be really awkward like we only just met? ‘Cause if that’s the case, I’m hangin’ up and going the eff to sleep.”

The silence he was met with gave him time to suddenly regret everything he had ever said or done, ever. 

“Eff. Shit. Sorry, that was totally uncalled for. I just had like a super shit day, and I--.”

“No, no,” she said, quickly cutting him off. “It’s fine. I’m sorry too.”

The pause that followed felt eternal. It was almost too much for him. But the sudden sniffling on the other end broke the silence before it broke him, and forced Ryuji to focus on the call and not his self loathing. 

“Shit, Ann, are you  _ crying _ ?”

“N-n-no…” How the hell did Ann think she could be an actress? She was a god awful liar. Especially when he could practically feel her tears through his phone screen. 

“Ann…” Every bit of frost, edge, and fury in his voice melted at the sound of his friend’s sobbing. He could picture her bright red blotchy face, waterfall eyes, and gross snotty nose, as she trembled and clasped her phone to her face. Ann was always an ugly crier, and he knew too well how age had done nothing to change that. 

“It’s okay, man, it’s okay. Just like… stop crying… please?” 

God was he bad at this. Ryuji couldn’t even deal with his own feelings, how was he supposed to deal with someone else’s? 

“Do you like, want me to come over or something, to like… comfort you?” The offer was weak but the uncertainty and discomfort in his voice was enough to make her let out a little laugh.

“No, no… I’m fine… I just… I had no idea you felt that way. Wow, I’ve been horrible to you, haven’t I?”

“What? No! It’s fine. You’re fine. It’s my fault anyway.”

He could practically hear her shaking her head from how hard she was probably doing it. “It’s not completely your fault, Ryuji. I should have texted more, I shouldn’t have ignored you like that. I’m sorry.”

“I am too.”

“Good.” He could hear the smile in her voice on the other end, which was quickly followed by the sound of her blowing her nose. 

He wrinkled his own. “Ew, couldn’t you have done that like… away from the mic?”

“Nope!” she giggled, her voice regaining it’s normal cheerful tenor. “But seriously, how are you? How has your break been?”

Ryuji smiled into his phone and flopped down onto his bed, for once feeling not so alone in his dark and empty apartment. 

The two chatted for a while, updating one another on what had been going on since school had gotten out. They talked about Leblanc, her modeling gigs, how frustrating Akira was, and so on. It wasn’t until she had finished telling him all about her date with Makoto, and how she had managed to still sweep the student council president off her feet even after Akira had so rudely interrupted, that Ann finally got to her point. 

“Look,” Ann said, her voice taking on a far more serious tone,  “about why I called…I just… I… um. You know how I’m happy with Makoto now, yeah?”

“Uh… yeah? You’ve been talkin’ about her nonstop for like the past hour.”

“Um, yeah… Well,” she stammered, fumbling with her words, “I want you to be just as happy.”

Ryuji’s plucked brows furrowed. “Uh, thanks? That’s nice of you to say?”

“No! Like! Ugh…” Frustrated groans and hand waving could be heard from the other end. “Like you know how like… I was super nervous to ask Makoto out, yeah? And like… when I did and she said yes, I was _so_ _happy_ , right?”

“...yeah?” Ryuji was never a smart man, and he felt as though this took too much brain power to comprehend.

“ _ Well! _ I want you to feel the same way!”

Ryuji’s head lolled to the side, in pure, complete, and utter confusion. “Uh, okay? How?”

“ _ Ugh! _ You know!  _ By asking! _ ”

“Do you want me to ask someone out? I dunno, Ann… with this whole Morgana thing, I’m not sure if I can even move on like that yet. My feelings are still bit too… I dunno, there? Who would I even ask out anyway?”

_ “MORGANA, YOU DUMBASS!” _

Ryuji flinched and pulled away from his phone as Ann practically blew out his speakers.

“What?  _ For real? _ No! Are you just tryin’ to set me up for rejection? Is this some kind of joke?” 

Ann’s loud and frustrated sigh poured through the speaker like hot and, somehow, exasperated sand. “No. It’s not a joke, Ryuji.” The thud that came from the other end sounded like a head hitting a wall or a table. 

Ryuji frowned as he waited through the oddly tense pause. He knew Ann was irritated with him, but he wasn’t entirely sure for what. He was about as confused as she apparently was frustrated. 

“So,” she began, talking slowly as though she were talking to a child. “You know how I was really really nervous about asking Makoto out, right?”

“Yes. We literally just went over this.”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “ _ Anyway _ . So like, I was so very nervous because I thought she would say no, yeah?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, I really never thought someone as smart and cute and beautiful as her would ever want to go out with a dumb second year like me. I thought I had like zero chance with her.”

“Okay…?” 

“But, like, when I did ask her out, she totally said yes! And like she totally felt the same way even though I thought I had like no hope of ever having my feelings reciprocated.” 

Ryuji shifted uncomfortably. He could feel an overwhelming wave of expectation lurking within the pause, but as per usual, he knew he was most definitely going to fail to meet them.

“Um… cool? I’m glad she felt the same way? What does this have to do with me?”

A muffled infuriated scream pierced the air through the line. Ryuji’s ears had never felt more grateful for whatever pillow it was that was smothering it. He waited for her to catch her breath and continue, feeling like if he said anything else, he might not be so lucky for her to use a pillow. 

“What I’m saying  _ is _ ,” she said between infuriated pants. “Don’t lose hope.”

He blinked. She couldn’t possibly mean what he thought she meant. “Are you… do you mean…Do you actually think Morgana would say  _ yes _ ?”

He was almost too petrified to even consider that to be a possibility.  He’d been let down a tad too many times in his life to even try. 

“I’m just saying that you might have a better chance than you think.” 

His head was honestly spinning. 

It was impossible. Morgana was in love with  _ Ann _ after all. Beside, he hated Ryuji! Hell he had even been avoiding him! How on earth could Ryuji of all people, have chance with  _ Morgana? _

“Trust me,” Ann said, her words shaped by her smile. “I have it on good faith that things might not be as hopeless as you think.”

Ryuji just stayed silent, barely even processing her words. His mind was at war with his all too hopeful heart. It was impossible, it simply couldn’t even  _ be _ possible but yet…

“Look,” Ann said, just barely being able to pull him out of his overwhelmed and confused stupor. “I have to go. But just think about what I said, and remember that I just want you to be happy. I’ll talk to you soon. I promise.”

He was almost too stunned to even say goodbye as she hung up. He didn’t have hope. He couldn’t. But her words echoed in her head, as his heart struggled to break out of his chest. This was too much, too much hope, too much doubt, too much of everything. 

But yet. 

Maybe this was just enough to give him the push that he needed to finally make a move. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It took me so fucking long to finish this fic. Like I started it last June, then kept trying to restart it, hating each draft until I came back to it a month ago and fucking went with the first draft I did. I'm a dumbass. 
> 
> Anyway, now that I got this one out of the way, I can hopefully start on the next one soon, though it depends on my schedule. I promise that the next one won't take over 6 months to post, and it'll be a lot less angsty. 
> 
> I'm so fucking sorry for taking so long, though I'm even more sorry for continuing this shit ship. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I'm so sorry.


End file.
